First run ever I had metal looking flakes in shine. Distilled results second time to make stronger, still copper colored flakes. 10 ft copper pipe, never cut it,ran water through it to clean. Don't understand where the flakes came from. Using aluminum Presto pressure cooker. Any ideas?

Are you sure it's copper flakes and not aluminum? Aluminum known to pit under caustic conditions (ie., distillation). You should always do at least 2 sacrificial cleaning runs after building or modifying your still. The first run should be vinegar/water mix. And then a sacrificial alc based run (most people just use cheap wine and water or a sugar wash). And never keep the output from either of those runs.

Didn't do test runs. Good idea. The flakes were copper instead of silver. The pipe fit into top real snug. Put a little marine adhesive around it on top. I will run a test run before next batch. any other ideas?Thanks,HillbillyDave

The "marine adhesive" doesn't sound too healthy there Dave. Might want to use paste instead (flour/water like biscuit dough). Could it be pushing your copper tube through the alumn top flaked off some copper shavings that your "marine adhesive" is slowly letting go of as it disintegrates from caustic high abv vapor?

Your contraption sounds iffy at best, HillbillyDave... Not safe at all... Scrap that rig and don't build again until you've done enough research to know what you've done wrong and how to do things right... It won't help for us to merely tell you everything, because we can't...

Your contraption sounds iffy at best, HillbillyDave... Not safe at all... Scrap that rig and don't build again until you've done enough research

You're not sealing up a livewell on your boat! You need to read, read and read, and when you do that then read some more!!!!! Dont build somethiing until you have a good plan [there are plenty of plans on this forum that won't let you down or make you sick! ] be safe because what you do today will tell on you tomorrow!!!

HillbillyDave wrote:First run ever I had metal looking flakes in shine. Distilled results second time to make stronger, still copper colored flakes. 10 ft copper pipe, never cut it,ran water through it to clean. Don't understand where the flakes came from. Using aluminum Presto pressure cooker. Any ideas?

I encountered this from my homemade still the other day as well. It was not anywhere near my first run and had distilled 4 gallons previously before this happened. The copper pipe I had been using was also uncut and to my knowledge clean. I started getting copper looking flecks an flakes in the distillate. I thoroughly cleaned my copper pipe an started over and re-distilled everything. That seemed to fix it for me. I don't know what the original cause was but now I spray out my copper pipe before starting a run.

Copper and aluminum don't mix well. Galvanic corrosion and acidic liquid can induce voltage like a battery. This could copper coat aluminum flakes from a pitting pot. So they look copper.

Proper cleaning runs needed to be done. Including the sacrificial alcohol run. That you don't drink. Even though you didn't cut the pipe. It still has things in it from the manufacturing process. Oils and flakes from them cutting it. Stuff that plain water won't clean out. That why the cleaning runs are recommended. Personaly I think 3 runs are in order. A vinegar and water run. A plain water run right after the vinegar run. You don't want the acid staying in the pipe. It will corrode it. And last the sacrificial alcohol run. That you do not drink. The acid in the vinegar will get the bad stuff out that is soluble with an acid. The water gets the acid out. The alcohol gets the alcohol soluble stuff out.

I would not use that still till. You get rid of the sealant. And do proper cleaning runs. But then again. I wouldn't use it anyway.